Walking Like a Feather.

When we found out we were going to Oombulgurri, I immediately found Mimi Shinn, to find out what it was like.  She and her husband, Ed,  had been the first to actually stay in the village. She told me that they had partitioned spaces with boxes  to provide some privacy for each family.  The one story I remember her telling me is about an a fternoon nap on a cot she had placed in the center of this box piled room. When she awoke, there were snakes in six different places in the process of crawling over the partitions. 

Needless to say, I was not really in a hurry to get to Oombulgurri! In fact, I had a phobia, even for grass snakes. Silly, I know, but very real.  Bob took me to the zoo - the snake house - so I could stand in front of them and build tolerance.  I'd stare at them for a long time , in a sweat and shivering, with the intent of adjusting to their existence.

 While in Oombulgurri, the only two times I ever really saw a snake were: a) a day when young boys, hoping I would scream - which I did , put it in front of my face; and (b) the time I saw one swimming along side of the 20+foot boat, it being as long if not longer.

However, I saw many snake tracks - in and out of our bedroom, walking on the path to the river in the early morning to meditate, and other sandy places.

One of the elders must have picked up on my terror. He offered to teach me how to walk through the fields - which, trust me, I did not do even after I learned. He taught me to walk like  a feather, placing each foot down firmly, with gentle resolve, as I proceeded. I was intrigued by the image of walking like a feather and pondered it for - well years now.

All the children, including my own, ran through the fields fearlessly, while I held my breath watching them. I have since decided that no snake in its right mind would dare hurt a child!

In the lore of this group of people, the rainbow snake was the beginning of life. The most revered person in the community would have been the daughter of the rainbow snake - something which passed from generation to generation. In Oombulgurri, the woman who held this position had an advanced stage of syphillis which caused her legs to look a bit like sabre blades.

I have never come to love snakes, even though one might have been the beginning of life, but I have come to hold a very healthy respect for them, even in my own yard. Black snakes feed on mice, but also on salamanders, which feed on spiders. Prefering the salamanders, I was grateful when a workshop behind my property was finished and the black snakes could return to the comfort of their home ground, now underneath the new building

In recent years, I have become aware that learning to walk like a feather, increased my confidence and mindfulness  - giving myself permission to be present and experience a sense of belonging where I was.  This image of walking like a feather replaces the image of myself as being present in a room as an unwelcome intrusion. I was given the gift of "No fear!"- an inner world experience.

I was given this most valuable gift by the remnant of a primal culture, which has all but been erased by the total disregard occasioned by Western expansion into their vast aboriginal environmental mansions and natural coexistence with its inhabitants.

Today, I am grateful for that experience which began as sheer terror and taught me to love the world around me and its daily events. It's about going into the most impossible situation and creating a demonstrtion of possibility.

There are some places in the world, still, that need to be walked into, and signs of possibility created.
There are some places in our own Souls that need some seriously joy-releasing dancing, as well.

As you reflect, where are these circles of suffering calling your name to not just walk, but dance like a feather?